Running
by owlcat92
Summary: My plot bunny was just killed. YAY! Okay, the fight scene between Alex and Julian in Requiem, I just HAD to write it from Alex's POV, so yeah. The dialogue is incorrect, since I don't have a copy of the book handy, it's nearly midnight and yeah, that is why. The King Solomon bit is probably wrong, too, but it sounded good to me. Lots of heavy swearing. -Owl


**Hello, my lovlies! Mwah - I'll have a guess and say you didn't expect THIS.**

**Yeah . . . I haven't updated in a while . . . um . . . okay, the work load is killing me. Just . . . another two weeks is all I need, and then I shall SPAM YOU WITH CHAPTERS! YAAAAAAAAAAY!**

**Yes, so I have finished the Delirium series by Lauren Oliver, and ****_that scene _****. . . wow. I was like, "MUST WRITE FROM ALEX'S POV! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!" So yeah. Just so you know, I have to say this:**

**Julian, I hate you. Y U MESS WITH THE CANNON?! GAH! **

**So yeah. I had to get this off my chest. ***SPOILERS*** thank god it becomes Alex and Lena at the end. PHEW.**

**I mean, Julian - or Alex?**

**Trick question, right?**

**Yes, this is a Romance book and yes, I did read this and I liked it. I know I usually hate Romance and there WERE bits in there were I had a bit of "MY EYES! MY EYES!" So yeah. I moved on, and enjoyed the plot. It's really quite interesting. The idea of love as a disease - PRICELESS! Okay, so, let us continue!**

**. . . beware the swearing. There's a lot of it. The f-bomb and such. **

**I know that the dialogue and stuff isn't exactly right, and the Solomon thing is probably wrong, but I was having an author's moment, okay? Good. READ ON!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

* * *

Alex had been more than relieved when the pissed-out-of-his-tree Julian had said he wanted to learn how to fight. Alex had hated that kid since he met him; since he saw him kissing Lena. _His _Lena. Seeing that had made something snap; a fissure that had appeared from Crypts in him parted and made all of him spill out. Hearing Lena talk to him about Before was like rubbing salt on the wound.

He himself had been feeling the warmth inside him, but that warmth seemed like a cruel joke to him, and he had refused to drink anymore. He had led Julian outside after Raven and Tack. Alex wasn't blind; he'd seen the dirty looks Raven shot him. He didn't know what that was for, though it was most likely because she knew who he was. Raven was smart. She no doubt would have pieced together the parts of the puzzle.

As soon as they were outside Alex and grabbed Julian's wrist and twisted his arm so that it was pinned behind his back. Julian gave a muffled cry, and then laughed. Stupid alcohol. It wasn't hurting. Alex yanked the arm harder, almost popping the socket. Julian cried out then, and tried to kick him from behind. "Rule number one of fighting," Alex spat in his ear. "Be ready for everything and anything. Especially dirty tricks."

He'd steered Julian to the car park, where the fight had really started. Alex had always been better, Julian was breaking down like an old car. Alex's rage was white-hot in his chest, a painful knot clawing at his throat. If he killed Julian, then Lena would have to love him again . . .

His fist was flying towards Julian's temple, a king hit, suddenly a hand yanked him off balance and swung him over, hard, so he collided with the ground at bone-shattering force. "Stop it, you _dickheads," _Raven spat. She'd gone out Trapping—hadn't she? Crap. Shit. _Shit. _"You think you're so fucking smart, don't you? Sure, go ahead and kill each other. Have you thought of Lena, you assholes?"

She released Alex, but he could still feel that she was tensed, a coiled spring. Ready to lunge at them and rip their heads off. Alex straightened but remained on the ground. Julian swayed unsteadily. "What do you mean?" he murmured.

Raven let out a cry of frustration. "You idiots think you're _so _strong, don't you? You think that no one else has copped the same amount of shit that you have, don't you? _Don't you?" _her bright eyes bared into Alex like moons, into his soul. What was she going on about?

"You know how I met Lena? We found her. We thought she was dead. Her legs were basically worn to nubs. She'd come from Portland. She ran across the country in 3 days. _Three days. _Without stopping. You know why?" her glare was centred on Alex now. He knew why. "Because I told her to."

Raven's mouth tightened, she balled her fists, bit her lip. Then she continued. "When we brought her to the homestead, she begged us to kill her. She would stare at the ceiling, half there and half not. She said there was something that had left her. She could barely move. When we found her, it looked like she had been dead for weeks—she was pale with no muscle nor fat. Bones. That what she was. It took us ages to figure out she still had skin at all."

Alex swallowed. Julian looked horrified. Raven continued. "Then when she came to, she stared out the door, like she was looking for something, like she could see something that no one else could. In the night she screamed about running. That she was scared. That she was begging someone to climb the fence after her."

Raven shook her head. "She wasn't the same after that. I had to make her work to earn a place. Two weeks after arriving. Just out of the sick room. She was already cleaning the dishes. Whenever there was a fire, she would stare at it, almost looking for something. Only now do I know what. She was looking for the old Lena, the one she had buried back in Portland."

Raven was looking at both of them, but Alex felt cold to his bones. He had never thought this was what would happen. She hadn't been joking when she said the old Lena was dead.

"And then we went to Manhattan, she had changed again, not for the better," Raven's voice was icy cold. "And now you two show up! When she met you, Julian, do you know why she liked you? Because you reminded her of the old Lena. The one she had lost. She spent so long thinking that Alex was dead, and then he shows up just as Lena was starting to get better!"

Her hands were balled at her sides. "I'm not saying that you guys are bad. She likes you too much to hurt you, Julian, and she still loves you, Alex. Just one thing: you made her cry, those weeks ago. And knowing what I do about Lena, is she cries once, and never again."

Alex looked up at her, astonished, shocked. Impossible. That wasn't the same, gentle Lena he remembered. The free Lena, like a bird. This was someone else Raven was talking about, right?

_Right?_

"And now I find you trying to kill each other," Raven scowled at both of them. "You know why she can't look at you, Alex?" he looked up, afraid of what she was going to say. He didn't want to hear anything else. But she went on. "You told her to run. And I know that she isn't, deep down, ever going to stop running until you tell her to stop. But you're not going to. Even if you did she won't. You broke her. She is still running from you, from Portland, and maybe if you tell her to stop she might, but there will always be part of her that is sprinting, a part that won't stop until they wear away their limbs and bones until they are a meaty chunk on the ground. And then they will wither and die and that will be it."

Alex looked at the ground. He had created this—he had put Lena through all this. How was she still alive? Alex had dealt with physical pain, with taunting—but even this he couldn't fathom.

Julian, however, didn't appear to be able to hear it. Too much whiskey. Alex looked up at Raven, who flashed a glare of disgust at him, before stalking off.

Julian had resumed the fight after that. But something else drove Alex now—the fact that Julian hadn't listened, that he had been to fucking pissed to be able to hear Raven, that this was his Lena that had done that, survived that, changed, died, ran . . . and there was no way to make her stop.

His anger at Julian had driven him, and then Lena had charged out of the trees. But he didn't see Lena, he saw a pale girl with fierce, hard dark eyes. One that had stared at stone and learned how to become it. One that wouldn't stand for this. "I'm sorry," he whispered at her, unable to look at her any longer he looked back at Julian, who was staring him down. There was a wall of tension between them, and he could feel Julian getting ready to break it down.

Then they had collided, and Lena had screamed. It wasn't fear that she screamed; it was anger; it was frustration; it was being tired of watching the world around her fight to the ground while she had nothing else to do but bury the part of herself that remembered the old world from Before that.

She had screamed, she had tried to pry them apart, and then Tack and Raven had come back. Tack had hauled him off Julian, and Lena was looking at him with such . . . with such pain that it ripped him in half. The stony eyes had broken, and it was like he was making the walls crumble. Just she wasn't hurt; she wanted to kill him.

He looked pleadingly at her; he had reasons—Julian didn't listen! He didn't care! But Lena looked away. "Lena," he said. "Forgive me."

_You told her to run, _Raven had said.

_She's still running._

_She won't ever stop._

Lena went and knelt by Julian's side. Raven glared at him so hard it felt like it was making him catch on fire. She had told them to stop, warned them that they had to stop. But they hadn't. It was his fault.

_Lena,_ he willed her to hear him. She glanced back for a second, but her dark eyes were narrow with anger and loathing. They weren't Lena's eyes: they were an Invalid's eyes. _I'm sorry, _he tried to tell her, but she looked away, her expression clearly saying, _this is your fault. _

Alex had fled after that. He had written a note: _The story of King Solomon is the only way to explain. Forgive me. _

He would rather give her up than cause her anymore pain, or put her through anymore shit than she had already been through. Maybe he could come back one day, if Julian had somehow died, and he could rescue her, show her the other way, like before, but he knew that she would just run. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't write _You can stop running _on the note. Lena was a runner. She would never stop being that.

So he left. He was heading to Portland. Maybe he could blend in, disappear. Maybe he could spare Lena the pain of seeing him again. He stared down at her small face, plain. The plain face that he loved. He ran his thumb over her cheekbone. She shifted away from his touch. Even in sleep she ran. He sighed sadly and turned away. Suddenly a hand grabbed his wrist. He looked down and saw Lena's collaused hand grabbing his. She said nothing, her face showed nothing. She was asleep. After a long, stifling moment, her hand fell.

Alex got away as fast as he could. He couldn't bear to see her in anymore pain.

_And so King Solomon said, "this child must be yours, for you would rather it in the hands of another woman than cut in half." He looked at the other woman, and condemned her to death. _

He gave up Lena.

And condemning her wisps of love for him to death.

That was all there would ever be.

Requiem.

* * *

**. . . ****_yeah . . . _**

**Well, I had to do this. Oh wow there's no weight on my chest now . . . PLOT BUNNY Y U SIT THERE?! GAH!**

**I have killed the bunny. Yay.**

**Okay, through the whole thing where Alex comes back I've had this thing about Lena running, and this is what my brain has decided to make of it. So yeah.**

**My little one-shot, hope you enjoyed!**

**-Owl**


End file.
